Wednesday, December 19, 2007

By Order Of: In a fiat system, debt is money and money is debt. As massive debts keep getting written off, the money that was created by issuing the debt gets destroyed. The evaporation of large amounts of money by paying back loans leads directly to deflation. In other words: Depression. Simple math.

Steady State: There are no democracies on the planet, only differing forms of oligarchy, Chinese state capitalists, Russian state capitalists are roughly similar versions of American capitalists. If you are going to rape, plunder and kill, it is best to do it in that order.

Eating the profits. In designing your utopia, remember: taking family needs into account, a man on foot can profitably forage over about a 25 mile radius - or by horse and cart, for the horse has to eat. What is the food availability within 25 miles of your home? And how many people will that support?

One More Thing: A thin spot in the Earth's crust beneath the Northeaster Greenland Ice Stream allows magma to heat the base of Stream, which carries ice from the interior to the Greenland Sea. The ice stream appeared about 1990. Not included in current models of ice cap melting, the heat causes the base of the ice cap to melt, working as a lubricant to ease the movement of the ice to the sea.

Amazing Science! Youngsters allowed to leave the house without an adult are more active and enjoy a richer social life than those who are constantly supervised, according to a new study. Of course kids that don't leave the house are less active and less social. Social science. Dhuh.

Dreamworld: Major home builder Lennar plans to finish building the first 259 homes of a 1100 unit development in California, but has decided not to sell any of them until the housing market improves. When will this be, how they going to keep the houses up meanwhile, and how long can they go without paying back their construction loans?

Unforgettable : Scientists say it is unlikely that greenhouse gases will be kept low enough to avoid serious harm to the world as we know it. The collective will is missing. What these guys are saying is that if we don't do some very drastic things now, very drastic things will be done to us later.

Billions and Billions: Banks paid ACA for insurance against losses on bond investments. The bonds have gone so far south that ACA cannot pay off on the insurance. Rather than take their lumps (and losses) the banks are doubling their losses by buying out ACA with enough money to offset the losses they would have been recompensed for had ACA not gone on vacation. Why do this? So you don't have to tell the world (a) you, too, are bankrupt or (b) you are not smarter than a 5th grader. This was the first test of the $42.6 trillion credit default swap market. It failed. That was trillion, with a 'T'.

Fall In! All those who think producing 36 billion gallons of biofuels yearly by 2022 is remotely possible, raise you hands. If we turned allour cropland into corn and turned all the corn into ethanol we wouldn't come halfway. Put your hand down.

Capitalism, Inc.Morgan Stanley writes down $10.3 billion in bad guesses, prostitutes itself to China's sovereign fund for a $5 billion infusion at 9% interest. The CEO graciously declines his Christmas bonus, while claiming these are "small losses" incurred by a small trading team." So small they sold 9.9% of themselves to the Chinese. Morgan lost 75 cents on the dollar in their sub-prime investments. China has also bought into Blackstone Group and Bear Stearns, while Dubai now owns a goodly part of Citibank. Ah, the wonders of free market capitalism.

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.